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Trump Drive to Cut Safety Net Could Hit His Voters
Trump Drive to Cut Safety Net Could Hit His Voters
The new administration wants to slash aid for health, food and housing, but many of those programs now reach the struggling working class he is courting.
Republicans are mulling deep cuts in safety net spending, partly to offset tax cuts for the wealthy. But these could harm some of the voters who helped elect Donald Trump. Doug Mills/The New York Times
By Jason DeParle
Jan. 23, 2025
In his first term as president, Donald J. Trump targeted what many Republicans consider blatant welfare waste — a rule that gives food stamps to millions of people with incomes above the usual limit on eligibility.
His proposed change would have saved billions but hurt low-income workers making the bootstraps efforts that conservatives say they want to encourage. Advocates for the needy resisted and the effort to shrink the program died during the pandemic, but it illustrates a challenge Mr. Trump may face as he pledges to cut spending in his second term while courting the working class.
Republicans are mulling deep cuts in safety net spending, partly to offset big tax cuts aimed mostly at the wealthy. But some programs they propose to cut reach not just the poorest Americans but also struggling working class voters, many of whom helped elect Mr. Trump in November.
“There is absolutely a tension,” said Douglas Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who teaches at Harvard. “The Republican Party’s support is increasingly coming from people who would be hurt by standard conservative policy.”
{snip}
Jason DeParle is a Times reporter who covers poverty in the United States. More about Jason DeParle
The new administration wants to slash aid for health, food and housing, but many of those programs now reach the struggling working class he is courting.
Republicans are mulling deep cuts in safety net spending, partly to offset tax cuts for the wealthy. But these could harm some of the voters who helped elect Donald Trump. Doug Mills/The New York Times
By Jason DeParle
Jan. 23, 2025
In his first term as president, Donald J. Trump targeted what many Republicans consider blatant welfare waste — a rule that gives food stamps to millions of people with incomes above the usual limit on eligibility.
His proposed change would have saved billions but hurt low-income workers making the bootstraps efforts that conservatives say they want to encourage. Advocates for the needy resisted and the effort to shrink the program died during the pandemic, but it illustrates a challenge Mr. Trump may face as he pledges to cut spending in his second term while courting the working class.
Republicans are mulling deep cuts in safety net spending, partly to offset big tax cuts aimed mostly at the wealthy. But some programs they propose to cut reach not just the poorest Americans but also struggling working class voters, many of whom helped elect Mr. Trump in November.
“There is absolutely a tension,” said Douglas Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who teaches at Harvard. “The Republican Party’s support is increasingly coming from people who would be hurt by standard conservative policy.”
{snip}
Jason DeParle is a Times reporter who covers poverty in the United States. More about Jason DeParle
8 replies
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